Martin Henry THE COUNTRY is in the best shape ever, since Independence, proclaims Dr. Peter Phillips, vice-president of the PNP and Government Minister.
The country is in the worst shape ever in its 40 years of Independence, shots back Edward Seaga, Leader of the JLP and of the parliamentary Opposition.
What are we citizens to make of these contrary election year views of our political leaders? Part of what I do is to help tertiary students to sharpen their skills of critical analysis. Dr. Phillips and Mr. Seaga haven't taken any of my classes yet. Students are taught to seek and assess evidence in balance, to set up valid criteria of evaluation, and to carefully consider and respond to the data that do not fit pre-conceived notions. They are asked to diagnose the motives and interests of the makers of claims as part of assessing the merits of those claims.
In the exchange between Phillips and Seaga, motives are crystal clear. It suits Peter Phillips to argue that the country is in the best shape ever. After 13 years of 'solid achievements' and heading back to the electorate for a fourth consecutive term, but trailing the JLP in opinion polls, of course the country has to be in the best shape ever, despite any evidence to the contrary.
Mr. Seaga, in the wilderness of opposition, sees only failure and disaster from the rule of the PNP, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.
To make matters even more clear about the perspectives of these one-eyed political claimants, both were addressing party faithfuls, a situation in which accuracy and truth are not nearly as important as whipping up the fervour of the troops.
I can tell both claimants, reporting from direct engagement with some of the most highly educated young Jamaicans, that a major reason why 46 per cent of voting age Jamaican youth have disengaged from the political process, according to the polls, is because they are turned off by the half-truths and plain deception of politicking which insult basic intelligence. Both those who make the boast that we are better off today than we were before and those who deny it as an automatic political duty are not speaking the 'truth.'
By what measure is Dr. Phillips claiming that the country has never been in better shape since Independence? By what measure is Mr. Seaga countering that conditions in the country have never been this bad? Both claimants have chosen their data with very careful prejudice.
Minister Phillips, in traditional PNP style as the party which "puts people first" and reminiscent of the 'social achievements' of the 1970s, relied heavily on social statistics as principal justification for his claim. Mr. Seaga, "it takes cash to care," true to form relied more heavily on economic data. Over the last dozen years, the UNDP has done the world a great favour by developing and using the Human Development Index, combining a growing range of economic and social data, to measure human development and well being.
The data left out and ignored by both sides are most instructive. Dr. Phillips told his hearers that "inflation is now at its lowest level since the early 1960s and we are on a stable platform to achieve growth and progress." He, of course, conveniently forgot the causes of inflation created by his Government and the horrendous social and economic costs of taming it.
If inflation is at the lowest level since the early 1960s, unemployment having see-sawed in double digits over the years (maxing at 25 per cent in the mid-1970s), is back where it was 40 years ago, at 15 per cent according to the 'official' statistics. And the profile of unemployment has changed character under Dr. Phillips' Government. Never before in Jamaica's labour history has there been proportionately so many professional and skilled workers in the rank of the unemployed, something which is at least partly a consequence of the rise then taming of inflation. Neither claimant has assessed what may be Jamaica's biggest problem created by their alternating stewardship: the debt burden.
Mr. Seaga was mean-spirited in his counter-attack upon Dr. Phillips education data. There is more educational opportunity, by any measure, today than 40 years ago, despite all the justifiable criticism of the system. What has seriously changed, as my students can advise both politicians, is the negative correlation between more education and better employment opportunities. This surely is one of the major disasters of the last 40 years. More and more Jamaican young people are calculatedly using the country's higher education system merely as a ticket to migration. But the brain drain is not new. More professionals migrated under Mr. Seaga's Government in the 1980s than in fact did in the 'runaway' days of the 1970s. Jamaicans have been a migrant people for 100 years.
Over the last 40 years, the country's road network has been greatly expanded, but the railway has been closed. There is now better access to utilities and health care. There is greater availability of goods and services of every conceivable type. Cars and cell phones are particularly cogent indices in this regard, although scoffed at by the cynical as a 'solid achievement' of this Government.
There is more access to housing since the NHT and other initiatives than at any other time in the whole of Jamaica's history, not just the last 40 years, though still far from being adequate.
Life expectancy, one of the most powerful measures of the shape a country is in has extended to match the developed world. But we all stand a much better chance now of getting shot and killed than anyone did 40 years ago. The murder rate then was about 4 per 100,000; today it is nearly 10 times greater at about 38 per 100,000. The two greatest expressed fears of the youth I interact with, running neck and neck, are crime and unemployment. Those who are setting out to woo the youth should take note.
The economy, by sectors, has been transformed. Sugar, and much of the rest of agriculture, has declined (is that for better or worse?) but tourism, mining and, very importantly, services have grown. This Government must not be allowed to forget that its policies, by commission or omission, have brought both the manufacturing sector and the financial services sector to their knees. With the burgeoning growth of the informal sector - a measure of poor governance by all concerned - Mr. Seaga's GDP figures of $1,845 per capita 40 years ago and $2,000 per capita now are neither here nor there as a measure of national wealth or well being. Common sense judgement seems to suggest that raw poverty is considerably down over 40 years ago, and we know that remittances from migration has had a big hand in this.
Comparisons with other countries, as Mr. Seaga has done, is a sleight-of-hand switch of terms of reference if the question is about whether or not Jamaica is in better or worse shape than 40 years ago. All that is necessary is a longitudinal time line comparison using key indices which can find credibility with an informed, rational but sceptical audience; but, as we well know, our political leaders don't think we qualify.
Martin Henry is a communications consultant.
